Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804): D.H. Lawrence once noted that “there could be no more perfect work of the American imagination than The Scarlet Letter.” Perhaps that’s because the novel’s author, shares a birthday with the United States itself—he was born in Massachusetts, 28 years after the nation’s founding.Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804): D.H. Lawrence once noted that “there could be no more perfect work of the American imaginati